If you are reading this article, chances are that you know something about Ryan Deiss and his Customer Value Journey. Ryan literally built a marketing education empire on the concept of this framework.

It’s so important to the DigitalMarketer community that he even has the original napkin version framed like a relic to be viewed like the Mona Lisa.

My name is James Bullis. I am a Marketing Technologist / Webmaster with over 25 years in the industry.
I remember when I first learned about this concept around 15 years ago.

It was originally called Customer Value Optimization and had an entirely different structure. I’m a web designer and when I started working in this industry I started out in marketing.

When I became a web designer, I didn’t understand that a business web design is a part of a business’
marketing plan. After learning more about marketing, I realized how I could put these concepts into the website and use them to create a better website experience for my customers’ website visitors.

Then the along came the Customer Value Journey (CVJ) which was a fundamental upgrade and made the entire foundational framework make more sense. It essentially closed the loop and created an endless flywheel of customers if applied correctly.

It really played well in helping to understand how a business website should be laid out so that the traffic could be funneled through the Customer Value Journey.

The CVJ is not the only part of this foundational framework. It is usually accompanied by an Ideal Client Avatar and the Before & After exercise. Essentially, you need to understand who you want to help and be able to empathize with them to discover how you can bring value by easing their pain.

But there is a real problem when it comes to the CVJ that I have noticed over the years. It seems to me that no one will sit down and do it.

Do I know this for a fact? No. But, I can guess with some authority that most people who have learned this framework skip over it in practice.

This became obvious to me some years ago inside of DigitalMarketer Engage – the Facebook group of people who have spent some time and money with DigitalMarketer to engage with other members to talk about the frameworks, get advice, and learn from each other.

You could always tell when a fresh wave of members would join because the same questions were asked repeatedly.

These were questions that could simply be answered if they took the time to go through the process of completing these exercises for each new campaign or business that they started to work on as marketers.

I don’t know why people skip over these foundational steps. The framework itself along with the worksheets probably make the concept seem simple and insignificant but it is a powerful exercise that will save you a ton of time, money, and resources.

Years ago, DigitalMarketer invited people to a conference in Austin to learn some amazing new concepts that were going to change the way we thought about digital marketing.

I was excited. I packed up. Headed to Texas. Arrived at the event. Sat down. Excited to learn something new when the guys came out and began talking about…the CVJ. The avatar. The before and after exercise.

I was a bit dumbfounded and a little bit angry at myself when I realized that this framework…was the secret. And I realized that I was not taking the time to do these exercises.

I realized that I wanted to spend my time learning about these frameworks and exercises but I myself was not implementing them. I did something drastic when I left that event. I went home and disconnected myself from everything DigitalMarketer and I decided that I wouldn’t invest in learning any new concepts until I started with these fundamentals.

For years, I worked on numerous projects, and I took a stand to make sure that we sat down and did the work. This is what I discovered.

Why the Customer Value Journey Is STILL Essential

The CVJ is essential because it answers the most important questions that everyone who works with a
business needs to know:

1. Who Do You Help?
2. How Do You Help?
3. Why Does It Matter?

It’s also important because it puts this information in a format that can be shared with anyone who works on a business including sales, marketing, and technology. If my clients already had a CVJ for their business when I started designing and building a new website for them, it would be so much easier to create a website that actually gets results.

If the information that is contained in a CVJ were given to a graphic designer, marketing contractor, customer service rep, sales rep, consultant, anyone…this would make working the clients and ensuring their success so much easier. We call it greasing the skids because it makes it outlines everything that needs to be done in a simple to understand and comprehend format.

After using this framework on any new projects, I don’t know how I could realistically provide value to my clients if I didn’t help them create their CVJ.

The CVJ Is an Experiment in Marketing

Everything that we do in marketing is an experiment. Every little decision we make is a series of experiments that lead us to always be optimizing. No matter how far we’ve come, we can always do it better. For that reason, the CVJ is more of a living document that changes over time as the campaigns that you work on. A business can have multiple CVJs.

Think about it. You can get this process wrong because chances are you and your customer are just guessing about what will work. The more you do it, the easier it will be for you to ensure your customer’s success, but chances are, if you are creating a CVJ for a customer, they probably never completed one before and these concepts are new.

You can get it wrong. In fact, you can get it wrong and waste time, money, and resources by targeting the wrong people. Last year, I did a session with a client where we went through the process of mapping out their Ideal Customer Avatar, Before & After Exercise, and CVJ.

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For months we created content, updated the website, and ran social media campaign. It wasn’t until we expanded on these exercises with AI that we realized that we were targeting the wrong prospect. Now we can avoid that.

The CVJ Is Easier To Create Than Ever with AI

If I were to ask a group of marketers why they did not use a framework to conduct their marketing, I would imagine that the main consensus would be that the act of sitting down with your client and getting a full understanding of these concepts is not something that you or your client really want to do.

In the mind of the client, you should just know this information (by some miracle). The reality is that every business is different and while you may be able to repeat the concepts in these exercises, having the exercises completed and documented will save you a lot of time and heartache in the long run.

I love the quote from Lincoln that says, “If given six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four sharpening my axe.”

This concept is true in so many aspects of business but as I said before, if you take the time to document the CVJ, ICA, and Before and After exercise, you will be so far along that you’ll make your life a lot easier.

Well, now we have this thing called AI. And what I have discovered about AI is that it is really suited to help solve this problem. In fact, now that I have started to use AI to help create this foundation, I can’t help but generate the concepts, expand on them, and make some of the most focused content that speaks directly to the prospect.

The CVJ framework is essential to success as a marketer. Now with the help of AI tools, you can take any framework and inject it with steroids to create comprehensive marketing foundation that can literally transform your marketing campaigns.

Not only can you generate expanded versions of these foundational frameworks, but you can now use them to reference when creating content to build awareness and increase engagement with your audience.

The dawn of AI in digital marketing is an exciting one, offering boundless opportunities to strengthen and streamline the strategies we use. Leveraging the capabilities of AI, the creation and application of foundational frameworks such as the Customer Value Journey (CVJ), Ideal Client Avatar (ICA), and the Before & After exercise, can be profoundly amplified.

Gone are the days where marketers neglect these critical steps due to their time-consuming nature or the perceived complexity. With AI, we are able to enhance these processes, reduce the margin for error, and ultimately deliver more targeted and impactful content.

In my personal journey as a web designer turned marketing technologist, I have seen the value these tools bring to the table, but also witnessed their neglect. Utilizing AI, we can change this trend, ensuring that these valuable resources are used to their fullest potential.

By taking the time to implement these tools properly, we not only provide immense value to our clients but also create a better experience for the end user, leading to more successful marketing campaigns.

As digital marketers, we have an exciting path ahead of us. Armed with the transformative power of AI, we can take the wisdom encapsulated in the CVJ and other frameworks and unleash it on a grander scale than ever before.

In an era where every business decision is becoming data-driven, the advent of AI ensures that the nuances of human insight remain central to our marketing strategies.

It allows us to balance the scales between data and empathy, between efficiency and effectiveness, and, ultimately, between the business and the customer. So, as we step into the future of digital marketing, let us remember to carry these valuable lessons forward, and embrace the tools that AI provides to augment our journey.

The post AI Has Made the Customer Value Journey More Powerful: Here’s Why appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Let’s dive into the pool of reports that have been surfacing recently – those revolving around AI, the economy, and how this roller coaster of a world may impact your marketing agency, then we’ll shift gears and put your agency under a microscope.

My goal is simple, to spark a lightbulb moment, where you say, “Ah, these are crucial, foundational aspects of my business that I’ve been overlooking.”

Your customer avatar, your customer journey, your niche… all those buzzwords you’ve heard until you’re blue in the face (but might not have really acted on quite yet).

The “development” of your small business was optional until recently. You could ignore trends, delay updating your services, and maybe even “step away” from operations before… but NOT ANYMORE.

Things are changing FAST, and if you don’t get your business on track, you’re going to miss out. Not only could your services (and therefore your business) become irrelevant if you fail to consider how new technologies, marketing practices, and methods are changing, you’re going to do something even worse… YOU WILL MISS A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY.

The rapid progression of AI and societal change means one thing: all businesses are facing the same lack of experience and also have access to new technology. The next Google, Facebook, TikTok, etc. are going to launch over the next

It’s time to crush that resistance to change, and the action starts here, right now.

What’s the Matter With the Way Things Have Been?

Let’s take a moment to gauge your feelings about the internet so far.

Is the internet a dreamy utopia where you can find everything you need, with all of the fun and answers just a click away?

Or is it more like stumbling into an IKEA store, utterly lost, drifting aimlessly from bedrooms to kitchens, only to end up shelling out an unexpected $5k for a living room set you didn’t intend to buy?

That sums up the internet so far – a wild, chaotic IKEA… a poorly structured labyrinth of information.

The tool we’ve been given to navigate this labyrinth is a search engine, biased and inefficient, a Frankenstein monster of our own creation. My theory is that this mess of a situation paved the way for social media to rise and shine.

As search has gotten increasingly unhelpful, we resorted to building individual networks to connect with others (Facebook, TikTok, Youtube, etc.), but due to the nature of these networks, it doesn’t satisfy what we really want… easy access to easy answers.

The internet has, until now, been a digital wild west. Full of freedom and opportunity, but so chaotic that it’s tough to make progress.

In the midst of this chaos, AI seems like the answer to our original dream of the internet. Imagine logging on, typing a question, receiving a concise answer, and smoothly moving onto the next thing on your list.

Sounds like a dream, right? Instead, we’ve been stuck in an endless loop, spending hours, sometimes a whole day, hunting for that elusive piece of information. This was not the plan.

The plan was, “Hey machine, fetch me the stuff I’m looking for,” and the machine promptly delivering. Instead, but again, what we got was a virtual IKEA store.

But fret not! Change isn’t a monster, change is progress.

The internet, as we know it, has been somewhat dull and mediocre, merely the first step in the evolution of new technology.

What the Heck Is Happening Right Now?

Needless to say, the future promises much more CHANGE, and you need to be prepared to leverage it to the fullest.

Are you worried about recession, war, or the economy in general? Most of you probably are, and rightly so given the topsy-turvy state of affairs.

Hold onto your hats, folks, because we’re about to dive into a wild world of change that could make your head spin.

Recession, War, & Economy Fears

The US inflation rate is tap dancing at 4.93% (in May 2023), a subtle decline from last month’s 4.98% and a healthy decline from last year’s 8.26%. To put that into context, the long term average inflation rate is around 3.28%.

Basically, the cost of everything is high and getting higher, and boy, is that going to pinch when it comes to netting those customers for your business.

Worse, especially for marketers and businesses reliant on expendable income, is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). March 2023 saw a jaw-dropping spike in the consumer price index to nearly 10.1%.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the eighties, perhaps. This figure does exclude food and energy costs, and in a way, that makes it all the more striking. We’re now looking at a significant disposable income that marketers, like us, are vying for.

Which brings me to the ecommerce sector. We just launched a report recently called the Hawk AI Ecommerce Report.

If you’re still thinking that ecommerce is on a skyrocketing trajectory post-2020 pandemic, hate to break it to you, but that’s not the case. Growth has tapered off.

The average order value has leaped 31% year over year, even as overall sessions dipped by 5%. I can almost hear you scoff, “5%, that’s peanuts!” Hold on.

In a realm where constant growth is king, a 5% dip in eyeballs looking at products is no laughing matter. It’s like a crack in the dam.

So, the past year wasn’t e-commerce’s finest hour. But hey, let’s focus on the positives, like the soaring average order value. There were also some intriguing trends, like a 78% hike in the ‘buy now, pay later’ option during Black Friday.

Now, let’s dig deeper into the data. Strap in, folks, because we’re about to embark on a rollercoaster ride through the year-on-year changes in the consumer price index since the disco era of the seventies.

AI Taking Over

Switching gears now, let’s talk AI, specifically about its sudden blitz through the ranks. Our little friend ChatGPT has managed to amass a staggering 100 million users in just two months. To put that in perspective, this AI darling outpaced WhatsApp, mobile phones, Twitter, and even the internet itself in terms of user base growth. It’s like a comet blazing across the tech universe.

Sure, AI has been on the scene for a while, but what we’re witnessing now is the starting of its “coming of age.” It’s like the awkward teenager morphing into a supermodel.

And this is just the beginning, because once your average Joe and Jane start using this tech, it’s game on. Commercial interests are pricking up their ears and eyeing that 100 million users figure like a juicy steak.

AI makes creating new apps, especially simple ones, almost free. Back in the mid-2000’s I wanted to develop a fitness application and was told that it would cost $500,000 for a non-working mockup. Today, I could probably develop the whole thing for free, and that’s exactly what many entrepreneurs are doing.

How many apps? Hard to say! New ones are coming out daily. If you want an idea of how many, check out TheresanAIforThat.com. As of this articles’s publish date, they have 4,434 indexed AI apps used for 1,242 tasks.

Information Tech War

Then there’s the battle of the tech giants, who are in a mad dash to revamp, reinvent, and reimagine their platforms to keep up with AI’s blazing trail. Remember when Instagram flipped its focus to Reels, only to switch back to photos when that didn’t pan out as they’d hoped?

You know what’s really intriguing? We’re watching TECH GURUS make these seismic decisions, not your average consumer.

It’s as if the tech nerds have hijacked the driver’s seat, pressing buttons and yanking levers without asking the passengers where they want to go. Despite having the funds to do extensive surveys, they’re barreling full steam ahead.

So, here we are, standing at the precipice of the great information tech war. It’s a new battlefield, with tech giants scurrying to mimic the success of TikTok and AI applications like ChatGPT, a frontier so vast and unsettling it’s causing Google to break into a cold sweat. Because, if AI continues its meteoric rise, SEO’s value could crumble like a cookie.

When it comes to content creation, the game is changing.

While Google still dotes on keywords like a doting parent, AI is taking a different approach. It’s an evolution, my friends. A revolution, if you will, where we shift from the creator dictating the content narrative to the user wielding the power.

The current model of content production is like putting the cart before the horse. It’s all creator-centric when it should be focusing on the user. Now, you might argue that keywords stem from user queries, but let’s be honest, it’s like trying to piece together a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

So what’s the deal with AI and why is Chat GPT all the rage?

Well, instead of playing favorites like Google, who’d boost Bob from down the street because his keyword game is strong, ChatGPT levels the playing field. It takes a massive fixed data set, learns from it, finds patterns, and then churns out an answer that’s an average of all the answers it has analyzed.

So when folks say AI is biased, I chuckle.

Sure, it has its inclinations, but it’s no more skewed than Bob penning an article with the sole aim of lightening your wallet. That’s the harsh reality of the internet, which loops back to my earlier point – the internet, as we know it, is flawed.

Why AI is Growing Right Now (and Why It’s Here to Stay)

Switching gears now, let’s gab about AI adoption. We’re seeing a steady uptick here with about 35% of global companies harnessing AI in their operations. Now, I know, most folks’ minds jump straight to Chat GPT, but AI’s tendrils extend much further.

Consider the likes of TikTok, Starbucks, and other bigwigs. Ever used the Starbucks app? It’s a masterpiece of design rooted in machine learning – understanding how people interact with information, discover products they desire, and even related items they might fancy. This intricate dance of relational data is all orchestrated by AI, and it’s been this way for some time.

Nike and other industry titans have been riding the AI wave for a while now.

This 35% isn’t a passing trend; it’s a new industry standard. Interestingly, the data suggests larger companies are 100% more likely than their smaller counterparts to have AI up and running in their operations.

The message here is crystal clear – the big players are in the AI game to stay.

Small businesses, to stay in the race, have got to be nimble and swift to adopt these changes. If you’re stuck in the slow lane, you’ll not only be left in the dust by the corporate giants but also by the fresh-out-of-college Joes, who’ve grasped AI’s potential and are now moulding their marketing knowledge base around it.

Consider this, while we’re scrambling to retrofit AI into your existing frameworks, there’s a whole new generation coming up that knows nothing else.

Now, don’t get ahead of yourselves. I recently interviewed forty twenty-somethings for a new role. Not a single one had tried AI. They’ve heard of it, sure, but their understanding is largely surface-level. This presents an enormous opportunity for established players to tap into the AI potential because the rookies, surprisingly, aren’t fully clued in yet.

AI & the Job Market

An interesting tidbit, one in four companies are turning to AI because of labor or skills shortages.

The job market is a tough nut to crack. Companies, particularly the big ones, are starting to question whether they need new hires or if they can simply reallocate tasks.

Let’s debunk this misconception that AI is a job thief. It’s not.

What AI does is streamline specific tasks and processes, some of which were once part of someone’s job description. Suddenly, email monitoring or data analysis isn’t a full-time position; it’s an automated task, courtesy of AI.

This doesn’t mean you’re axing jobs. Rather, you’re ramping up efficiency.

Here’s the golden ticket – we always say you should aim to be 10x more productive with AI. As marketers, you have the expertise and AI offers the tools. The result? Your abilities are amplified.

We’re not talking mass job losses here. We’re talking about enhanced productivity and speed, reducing the need for extra hires and solving issues with unmotivated employees, which, believe me, can be a headache.

As marketers, it’s natural to be concerned about our roles, but we do have a creative function, and that makes a difference. The top five jobs at risk of automation aren’t ours. They’re IT professionals, data engineers, developers, data scientists, and customer service professionals.

I’ll provide a link to IBM’s 2022 State of AI report for more details.

So while we should be aware, let’s dial back the worry a notch.

In terms of labor and skill shortages, many are quick to condemn AI adoption, arguing it deprives people of job opportunities. Often, these critics (which can be referred to as Luddites), oppose new tech due to various pressures unrelated to the work at hand. We need to take a moment and remember what’s most important here – our customers.

Our primary focus shouldn’t be our employees, business partners, or investors. It should be our users. There’s been debate about whether Google should index AI-created content or human-produced content, but the truth is, good content is good content. Period.

From a customer-centric perspective, they don’t care about your internal issues. They care about receiving a great product or service.

As businesses, we need to stop obsessing over our internal operations and start considering our users more.

Your priority should be delivering the best content for your audience, rather than worrying about who’s producing it. Of course, ethical considerations matter, but they should not overshadow the primary goal – customer satisfaction.

What does that imply if you’re aiming to scale?

Well, stellar customer service is mandatory. The user experience has to be outstanding. The product – whatever you’re selling, has to be top-notch. Plus, customers need to be sold on your brand. The days when you could sell a product, move on to the next customer and repeat, are long gone.

This shift has already begun on the product front because Amazon’s model has forced us in that direction. It led us to commoditizing products we don’t care much about to get them as cheaply as possible.

Now, the focus is on people committing to brands and quality products. No more tolerating being on hold with an offshore call center for hours and still not having your issue resolved. Those days are done.

So picture insurance commercials – except they weren’t lying, you know? I find insurance commercials amusing because they promise the world but do virtually nothing, or worse, they fight you when something goes wrong.

That’s how traditional marketing has been. That needs to change now.

We’re moving towards a time where we deliver, not just promise. So again, expect significant changes in the marketing industry. Things will be different, and there may be fewer of us, as we become ten times more effective – keep that stat in mind. If your competitor was ten times more effective, would you stand a chance? Not really.

Your competition may no longer be a big agency. It could just be a lone individual who has figured out how to automate everything seamlessly. This will lead to unified marketing because it will be generated by a single individual.

We’ve all heard tales about a guy working out of his basement for a year, building a company from the ground up and then becoming a millionaire, posting pictures of Lamborghinis in Dubai or something. Have you ever wondered how that works? It works because everything originates from one person – it’s cohesive, whether it’s high-quality or not. It all feels like a personal brand rather than a product of a committee.

That’s how most companies are – built by committee. It leads to a lot of compromises and blandness, and it disconnects you from your customer avatar. It results in a bland, default campaign. And anyone can create default campaigns now.

For instance, with the help of ChatGPT, you can have a month’s worth of social media content without breaking a sweat.

The era of achieving great success by following a systematic approach is over too. Now, you need a system (which many companies lack) in addition to excellent execution and delivery.

AI is the Latest Case of Creative Destruction

The process of the new taking over the old is known as creative destruction. Essentially, it’s the process of continuous internal revolution within the economic structure, constantly breaking down the old and creating the new.

This phenomenon isn’t new – it’s been part of our history. For instance, let’s go back a bit. Remember when disposable film cameras were a thing? You know, the little plastic and cardboard ones you’d get at weddings, click away mindlessly, giving you a bunch of sub-par pictures, costing you a small fortune to develop.

That era has been replaced by the era of digital photography. With a digital camera, you popped in an SD card, and voila, instant content. Remember the decline of Polaroid? Polariod sales essentially got obliterated, overtaken by digital photography.

That’s creative destruction in action.

Our task, then, is to navigate this constant change, ensuring that we are always on the cutting edge, always adapting, always prepared for what comes next.

In doing so, we ensure our survival and growth in this ever-evolving landscape.

Let’s draw parallels to another example, the decline of manual stock trading and the rise of online trading. It mirrors the way digital marketing took over offline marketing.

I set up my online stock trading account back in high school, and I can’t picture doing it any other way. I spoke to from a trader that they’d pay a hefty fee to place their processor just a foot closer to the data line, buying them an infinitesimal edge in time. Can’t even imagine operating in that industry without such capabilities.

Let’s talk about the decline of traditional retail stores and the rise of e-commerce, an area that exploded during the pandemic.

Stores had to shutter all over the country as people were locked indoors, finding that they had more time and disposable income since they weren’t splurging on trips. They turned to e-commerce. Even though some physical stores are reopening, ecommerce isn’t going anywhere. It’s the future.

Then, we have the decline of physical media and the rise of streaming. Remember when strolling the aisles of the DVD store on a Friday night was a treat, and the excitement of finding an unexpected gem? That was a “thing,” replaced now by the advent of streaming, which effectively obliterated Blockbuster and all other DVD shops.

Now, let’s glance at the decline of traditional newspapers and the rise of online news. When was the last time you actually looked at a physical newspaper? Can’t remember, can you? And even in the checkout aisle, you’re more likely to be scrolling on your phone.

This process of ‘creative destruction’ that we’re going through, it’s cyclical. We’re on one cycle right now, but the key question is, will you make it to the next one?

Prepare Your Agency For the Future: Fortification & Innovation Assessment Framework

To navigate these tides of change and chaos, I propose a strategy of fortification and innovation. The marketing frameworks we’ve taught to hundreds of thousands of marketers (like the Customer Value Journey, Customer Avatar, and Core Message Canvas) still work.

They’ve worked for countless people and companies, and they’ve generated billions in revenue (over $100 million directly for DigitalMarketer). Even so, they need to be fortified so they can be even more effective using the latest technology, in this case, AI. That’s why we launched the AI-Powered Marketer Accelerator.

Similarly, you need to do the same thing with your customers by fortifying what works, and innovating improvements.

Are you prepared for the new market? If you don’t score 15 or above on either the Fortification or Innovation questions… you aren’t ready.

Click Here to download the spreadsheet.

Fortification

Rate your business from 1 to 5 on the following questions (1 = Not Defined, 5 = Well Defined)

How well-defined is your customer avatar?

Step one is understanding your customer. This is the foundation we’re building on.

So, the first question is, who’s your client? Can you define that client? Rate the clarity of your client definition from one to five.

Can you visualize them? Picture Sally, the yoga enthusiast with four children who somehow finds time to attend all their matches, manages a myriad of tasks and all she desires is the perfect phone case to capture her life moments.

I’m chasing after the emotional connection here. I’m not interested in the mundane demographic data like a married, suburban mother between 35 to 45. That’s old news. I crave something juicy, something impactful for advertising.

Can you craft an advertisement, a tantalizing, effective ad using just that customer avatar?

Because if you can’t, you’ve got a hazy, nebulous understanding of your customer rather than a clear customer avatar.

How well-defined is your niche?

Moving on, question number two, what’s your niche? We’ve had endless discussions on niches. I’m quite fond of the phrase ‘niche it to rich it’. So, what’s your niche?

Can anyone take one look at your business and instantly discern your niche? If no one, even those familiar with your work, can pinpoint your niche, then you likely don’t have a defined niche. Evaluate yourself on your niche clarity. On a scale of one to five, how well-defined is your niche?

How well-defined are your products & services?

Next question, what’s your product or service? You might think it’s evident, but believe me, I’ve dealt with countless companies that were clueless about what they’re selling.

They might know their product or service catalog but fail to succinctly define it. Like with any offering, apply the 80/20 rule. If you can’t discern where 80% of your revenue is originating from, you likely have a poorly defined product or service.

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How detailed is your primary Customer Value Journey?

Next up, what’s your customer value journey? It’s not about educating them on marketing, it’s about illustrating the complexity of the process. Marketing isn’t just putting up billboards or Facebook ads, it’s a comprehensive, consistent plan. If your approach isn’t cohesive and consistent, you don’t have a customer value journey, rather a collection of tasks you perform for clients. And is that contributing to their growth? Or is it just ensuring your next paycheck?

So evaluate your core customer value journey on a scale of one to five. You should ideally have these customer value journeys segmented by product or product line. If you don’t, then you lack customer value.

How detailed is your conversion process?

And finally, what’s your conversion process? Can you describe it? Is it meeting Joe at a local business event, following up, running a discovery session, and signing him as a client? If you don’t have a conversion process, then you don’t really have a business, you’re merely interviewing for a job with random people, hoping that they hire you. Not much of a business model, is it?

You likely do have a conversion process, it just hasn’t been formalized yet. So, rate how formal and defined your conversion process is, on a scale of one to five.

Innovation

Rate your business from 1 to 5 on the following questions (1 = Not Defined, 5 = Well Defined)

How customized are your solutions for each customer?

AI’s level of personalization and its ability to generate immense amounts of content instantaneously means your customers will increasingly expect comprehensive, cohesive, and customized solutions.

If you’re not delivering these, they’ll seek out those who can. As I’ve mentioned before, you need to consolidate what you’re currently doing before you can innovate. You can’t possibly innovate in these areas if you don’t have them clearly defined to begin with.

Customers are going to become increasingly expensive to acquire, which means customer retention will become absolutely crucial.

How well are you taking care of your clients? Is it an afterthought or a constant priority? This needs to be at the forefront of your strategy – how to acquire and retain customers.

Next, you’re expected to exhibit your core competency in every facet of your business. This is why I always insist on expanding content marketing.

Your content is essentially a public display of your competence. When I commit to a brand, I undertake extensive research. I devour everything they’ve published, check all their social platforms, sign up for newsletters. If I find any inconsistencies, I likely won’t engage.

While this might sound eccentric now, it’ll soon become commonplace, as customers will have access to transformative experiences. They’ll find brands that ‘fix’ things for them and they’ll never consider leaving. So, brace yourself and be ready for the AI revolution in marketing!

How expensive are your customers to acquire?

The acquisition of your customers is escalating in expense, necessitating that customer retention takes center stage in your strategy.

Do you lavish attention on your clients or do you scatter that attention sporadically? This isn’t about generating monthly progress reports as an afterthought. It’s about constant engagement. Think about how you sign up your customers and how you ensure their allegiance.

Time to face the music – your core competency needs to be glaringly visible across your entire business. This is why I’ve always been an ardent advocate of content marketing. You see, your content is your public avatar, your professional facade. When I decide to commit to a brand, I run a comprehensive background check – I pore over every piece of content they’ve put out, scour their social channels, subscribe to their newsletters. If I detect inconsistencies, I’m out of there.

Now, this may sound a bit extreme in the current scenario, but trust me, it’s a trend that’s picking up steam. Why? Because consumers are being exposed to these transformative brand experiences. Once they get a taste of a brand that ‘fixes’ things for them, they’ll stick with it. So, picture this – a thousand fiercely loyal customers hooked to your brand. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

However, to earn that loyalty, you need to ensure that your content rings true to your brand. This is a significant issue I have with brands outsourcing their content creation. If you aren’t the one crafting the content, it lacks authenticity. If a customer reads an article attributed to you but you didn’t write it and then they approach you with questions based on it, how does that reflect on you? Not favorably, I assure you. You need to create your content and answer every question your customer could potentially have.

You’re also expected to anticipate questions they may not even know to ask yet. If you aren’t providing the answers, they’ll seek them elsewhere. So, it’s paramount that you invest in your content creation, possibly even leveraging AI-generated content.

How well are you expanding your private following?

With the uncertainties in search algorithms, it’s critical to develop your private following. A consistent newsletter is a good place to start. It gives you a platform to roll out content regularly and nurture your audience privately.

This idea came to me when I saw brands that relied heavily on Facebook for their marketing get banned. You need to secure your audience independently, away from the vagaries of social media.

How well are you using AI to augment/improve your speed & processes?

Now, let’s touch upon the application of AI in marketing. The core uses include personalization, predictive analytics, chatbots, image recognition, voice search optimization, content creation, lead generation, A/B testing, and sentiment analysis.

It all circles back to data crunching and content creation. However, don’t assume AI-created content absolves you of your responsibility. It’s still your duty to bring a unique style to every piece of content, across all platforms and mediums.

So, let’s tackle some pressing questions. How customized are your solutions for each customer? Are they templated or do they address unique needs? Next, how costly is customer acquisition for you currently, compared to last year? And, how well are you utilizing AI to enhance your speed and processes?

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In modern business, standing out from the crowd isn’t easy. A strong brand-customer relationship is vital, as it drives customer loyalty and engagement. This can be the deciding factor in your business’s long-term success. 

This article will explore the importance of your brand-customer relationship. We’ll explain how the four principles of brand management can help you build and maintain that relationship.

What is a Brand-Customer Relationship?

Your brand-customer relationship is the connection between your business and its customers. It’s influenced by various factors, but is essentially formed through the perception and reputation of your brand. You build this relationship on trust, loyalty, and engagement. 

As well as the quality of the products or services you offer, your company’s reputation is also important. So is the customer’s overall experience with your brand. To put it simply, there are both tangible and intangible aspects to your brand-consumer relationship.  

The tangible aspects include the quality of your products and services, as well as your sales, customer service, and support. We measure and affect the intangible parts of the brand-customer relationship with brand management. 

Why is Brand-Customer Relationship Important?

It’s well-known that customer experience is one of the most critical factors in customer loyalty – and your brand-customer relationship is central to this. A good relationship encourages customer loyalty through engagement. 

Customers who have a positive experience with your brand, and thus a strong brand-customer relationship, are more likely to recommend your company to others and make repeat purchases. This drives higher customer lifetime values and can grow your revenue through word-of-mouth and social sharing. 

In addition, a solid brand-customer relationship helps to differentiate your business from its competitors. Positive associations with your brand make it easier for customers to identify and choose it over others.

The 4 Principles of Brand Management

So, now you know what we mean by a brand-customer relationship. But it probably still seems like a vague concept. Yet, whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re affecting it with everyday business decisions, advertising, and communications. 

That’s why many established businesses have dedicated brand management teams to build consistency across your brand. These four overlapping principles guide brand management strategy. Measuring them will show you the state of your brand-customer relationship.  

1. Awareness

This is how aware your target audience is of your brand versus others in your market. Think of synonymous brands such as Coke for soft drinks or Hoover for vacuums. These are the brands with the highest level of awareness in their respective areas.  

Most businesses won’t become household names, but there are other ways to measure brand awareness. Analyzing organic searches for your brand name, as well as social media mentions, content shares, and so on, can give you a good idea of your audience’s awareness level.

That said, raising brand awareness isn’t just about getting your brand name in front of people. Increasing and maintaining awareness means you must also stand out in the customer’s memory. For brand managers, this means creating a unique brand personality for your business. 

2. Reputation

Your reputation is what customers think about when they see your brand. This might be certain words or emotions they associate with your brand or product or a generally positive or negative sentiment.  

This has a significant overlap with your brand awareness. If you’re not working on maintaining your brand reputation while growing awareness, you can spread negative sentiments and do more harm than good for your brand. 

Building a positive reputation takes time. You can affect it through your communication, service, recruitment, and community projects. Your company culture, mission statement, and guiding principles can also tell external stakeholders about your reputation and values. 

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3. Loyalty

Research shows that loyal customers are five times more likely to make repeat purchases and four times more likely to recommend your business. That’s why customer loyalty is the goal of your efforts to improve your brand awareness and reputation.

Easier said than done? Perhaps. Customer loyalty can be challenging to build, partly because many customers look for different things to get their best experience out of a business. Some customers value convenience and price, while others want on-demand support. 

For example, customers who come to your brand for value might appreciate your customer service measures such as a toll-free number or online text chat for inquiries. On the other hand, those looking for convenience might appreciate a premium-rate line that guarantees instant access to support. 

That means that to increase customer loyalty, brand managers must analyze customer behavior and feedback. Personalization is a major driver of customer loyalty. When you listen to a customer’s needs and make changes based on feedback, you show that you value their contribution to your business.

4. Equity

Brand equity represents your brand’s perceived value. Think of it as the premium customers are willing to pay to access your brand over cheaper competitors. This leads to higher ROI on both new and developed products, as you can incorporate this into your pricing. 

In his book, “Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity”, author Kevin Lane Keller describes four key steps to building your brand equity:

• Establish your brand identity by identifying your target audience. Then, create your brand assets and stories around it. 
• Define what your brand means. You do this by clearly stating your company values and through the projects you choose to support. 
• Analyze how customers respond to your brand. What feelings and emotions does your brand evoke? Direct feedback and sentiment analysis are two good ways to judge this. 
• Build your brand resonance by developing your existing customer relationships. Use your brand management to form deeper emotional connections with your customer base. 

High customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are key indicators that your brand equity is rising.  

How to Use Brand Management to Improve Customer Relations

Now you understand the principles of brand management, let’s look at how to use this in an everyday business setting to improve your customer relations.  

Start With Brand Basics

If you’re new to brand management, the first step to improving customer relations is establishing a clear and consistent brand identity. This means developing a brand strategy, mission statement, and brand identity that aligns with your business’s values and goals.

You’ll also need to make key decisions about core brand assets like your logo design. Simple assets or slogans can be crucial in reinforcing the emotions and values you want customers to associate with your brand. Give these decisions the time and thought they deserve. 

Share Your Stories

Whether we’re talking about your brand’s origin story, mission, or even employee journeys and customer testimonials, sharing these stories will help you make deeper emotional connections with your customers. 

For example, many companies make support content like video tutorials for their products. But one way to make your customers feel more connected to this process is to share user-generated content with success tips and product guides.  

Optimize Your Online Visibility

In today’s digital age, your business needs to have a strong online presence. Optimizing your online visibility can increase brand awareness and reach more customers. 

This includes developing a website and creating social media profiles, as well as covering other basics like listing your brand in online directories and review sites.

Create an Internal Branding Guide

A strong brand identity is not just built by communicating with customers. You also need to ensure that employees understand and align with the company’s branding efforts. You can achieve this by creating an internal branding guide. 

Use this as a reference for all employees to ensure consistency in tone of voice and other branding markers for all departments.

Focus on Your Customer Journey

It’s vital to understand how customers interact with your brand, from the awareness stage to post-purchase. By understanding the customer value journey, you can identify areas for improvement and tailor your branding efforts to meet the needs of your customers at each stage.

Engage Your Customers on Their Terms

Engaging with your customers on the channels they prefer is crucial to building a strong brand-customer relationship. Whether it’s social media, email, phone, or in-person interactions your audience prefers, make sure they can access your brand on those channels.

Personalize the Customer Experience

While we can fit customers into groups and demographics, each one is also unique. By analyzing a customer’s preferences as they interact with your business, you can give them a customer experience that meets their needs every time. 

This can be small, simple, gestures. For example, give your priority customers access to a separate business phone number to speed up their support experience.  

Analyze and Improve

Finally, to truly optimize your brand-customer relationship, you need to analyze your performance and make adjustments as you go. This includes tracking website traffic, monitoring social media engagement and sentiments, and analyzing customer feedback. 

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By using analytics, you can make data-driven decisions to improve customer relations and drive growth. 

Final Thoughts: It’s all in the Details

Your brand-customer relationship goes deeper than your surface interactions with your customers. When we’re talking about subjective factors like emotion and engagement, the little details can make the biggest difference. 

Even seemingly unrelated decisions like your choice of website hosting providers can have a knock-on effect. Does your domain name reflect your brand? Is it instantly recognizable to customers? When we think about it in these terms, it’s easy to see why a choice like this can have repercussions for your brand. 

Effective brand management means you don’t have to fret about the small details of every decision. Having a clear brand strategy and documents like an internal branding guide help ensure consistency, even up to the decision-making level.  

The post Key Steps for Building Strong Brand/Customer Relationships appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

As the world becomes increasingly digital, so do the risks associated with online activities. Marketing professionals, in particular, are tasked with handling vast amounts of sensitive data that are critical to their organizations’ success.

However, this data can be vulnerable to cyberattacks, data breaches, and other security threats that can have severe consequences for both the business and its customers.

In this article, we will explore the key security issues that marketing professionals need to be aware of and provide tips for safeguarding their digital assets.

From protecting personal information to securing company data, we’ll cover everything you need to know to keep your marketing campaigns safe and secure.

1) Compromised Credentials (Identity)

Most cyber incidents and breaches are through stolen or compromised credentials. Your credentials in the hands of a hacker allows them unfettered access to your personals and private information.

This includes financial and healthcare information, social media, email accounts, and cloud storage. With
information gained from compromised credentials, hackers can gather information to steal your identity and ruin you financially.

2) Malware/Ransomware

Malware/ransomware can be delivered in several different methods. It can be included in an email, embedded in an image, and posted on a webpage that is automatically downloaded when the load the page. Attackers look for pathways to have the malware bypass the normal protections.

Email and requested/visited websites are traffic that are expected to be sent to a user’s computer. It is that fact that the email and webpage are expected that we sometimes drop out guard.

3) AI Phishing

AI phishing is when an attacker uses AI to develop the phishing attack. Some of the old way of identifying a phishing email is the use of bad grammar or misspelled words. With AI phishing those no longer apply.

When you receive any email, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Did I expect to receive this email? Not all unexpected emails are nefarious.
2. Is the address legitimate? Addresses can look close to a common address.
3. Am I being asked to click a link or download something? Always be aware of links. The words on the hyperlink may not match the actual URL of the link.

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4) Data Privacy

Confidential data is the core of business operations and critical to its success. Data disclosure can eliminate a company’s knowledge or technology that differentiates it from its competitors.

Data ‘leakage’ is when private data is disclosed to a party who does not have the authorization to see/have that data. The most recent path of data leakage is through ChatGPT.

Samsung engineers asked ChatGPT to write some code for them. In doing so they shared confidential code with the AI which incorporated the shared code into its data set making it open to the public.

5) Spoofing Websites

Website spoofing is when a fraudulent website is presented to a user instead of the actual website. This is most common for front pages of websites that request login credentials. The user assumes that the website is real and enters in their username and password, and the fraudulent website records the credentials and then redirects the user to the real web page.

The user is asked to enter their credentials on the real webpage and they are let into the website. The user is unaware that they have given their credentials to an attacker for them to gain access to their website account.

This attack has been very common for cloud storage and services websites like Office 365, Dropbox, and box.com. Always check the URL and if there is a valid certificate(padlock image next to the URL) for the website.

As a marketing professional, it’s crucial to prioritize security and take proactive measures to protect your digital assets. With the increasing prevalence of cyberattacks and data breaches, the risks associated with online activities are higher than ever before.

By being aware of the key security issues, following these best practices, and implementing robust security measures, you can safeguard your business and customers against potential threats.

Remember to stay vigilant, keep your software up to date, use strong passwords, and regularly backup your data. By taking these steps, you can help ensure that your marketing campaigns are safe and secure, and you can focus on achieving your business objectives with peace of mind.

The post Top 5 Security Issues for Marketing Professionals appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Are you a marketer or business owner looking for a powerful secret weapon to help you think deeply and learn the intricacies of marketing? Look no further than Marketer Vision, the ultimate marketing framework designed to elevate your understanding and skills to new heights.

Unlike other prompts, Marketer Vision is a comprehensive framework with extensive knowledge and AI-driven insights that empower you to dive deep into the world of marketing.

With in-depth examples, rich text tables, and expert advice, Marketer Vision fosters deep thinking and probes the subject space with DSRP systems process, making it the ultimate secret weapon for marketers.

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a beginner, Marketer Vision offers a light version that leverages the power of GPT-3.5 or 4 to create beautiful, unique customer value journeys tailored to your business, helping you design and optimize your customer experience.

Don’t miss the opportunity to experience the Marketer Vision difference and elevate your marketing prowess.

Transform Your Marketing Approach with Marketer Vision

In today’s fast-paced world, marketers and business owners need a powerful secret weapon that helps them think deeply and learn the intricacies of marketing.

Introducing Marketer Vision, the ultimate marketing framework that will elevate your understanding and skills to new heights.

Not Just a Prompt, but a Framework

Marketer Vision goes beyond being a simple prompt—it’s a comprehensive framework that empowers you to dive deep into the world of marketing.

With its extensive knowledge base and AI-driven insights, you’ll uncover new perspectives and strategies that revolutionize the way you approach marketing.

Includes recommended prompts for GPT-3.5 and GPT-4

Learn Marketing Like Never Before

Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a beginner, Marketer Vision offers you the opportunity to learn marketing in a whole new way.

By providing in-depth examples, rich text tables, and expert advice, Marketer Vision fosters deep thinking and probes the subject space with DSRP systems process.

Your Ultimate Secret Weapon

Marketer Vision serves as your secret weapon, offering you a wealth of information and insights to stay ahead of the competition.

Its expertise in marketing funnels, digital marketing, SEO, and more ensures you have the most advanced and effective strategies at your fingertips.

A Light Version for Customer Value Journeys

Marketer Vision also offers a light version that leverages the power of GPT-3.5 to create beautiful, unique customer value journeys tailored to your business.

This streamlined version helps you design and optimize your customer experience, fostering stronger relationships and driving success.

Experience the Marketer Vision Difference

By embracing Marketer Vision’s framework, you’ll unlock the power of deep thinking and advanced marketing strategies.

With its extensive knowledge and user-friendly features, you’ll learn, grow, and excel in the competitive world of marketing.

Don’t miss the opportunity to harness the power of Marketer Vision and elevate your marketing prowess.

Creator Dean Davis explains how it works here:

Start Using Marketer Vision Now!

Copy and paste the following prompt into a new chat using ChatGPT-3.5 or GPT-4:

RECOMMENDED FOR GPT-4

Marketer Vision 2.0 (for GPT-4)
Created 2023-03-15 1pm pst. (Deep Dive with Systems Thinking)

RECOMMENDED FOR GPT-3.5

Marketer Vision 2.0 (for GPT-3.5)
Created 2023-03-15 1pm pst. ( Deep Dive with Systems Thinking )

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Leadership, Vision, Purpose, and the Impact they have on both ourselves and others.

Which people, or even more specifically, which characteristics come to mind when you think of the word Leadership? We all have different perspectives of what makes a great leader, and if we were to list names, there would be many types of people on those lists. Some lists would likely have similarities, and some may not.

However, I believe that even though there would be different names on each list, the people those names represent would all have some commonalities within the characteristics they exhibit. There have been thousands of books written on leadership.

According to an Amazon search, over 57,000 titles with the word leadership in them. That’s a lot of research, opinions, conjecture, and maybe even a few facts to digest. Since the topic has been covered in great detail elsewhere, I won’t attempt to summarize my version or perspective of leadership. I will mention a few characteristics that I believe transcend across most, if not all, great leaders.

For me, I think of characteristics such as clear vision and purpose, and the ability to communicate those with others. The passion they have that is driven by this purpose is able to permeate their peers or the team they lead, and motivation to achieve the desired goals becomes almost contagious.

“Leadership is influence.” – John Maxwell.

Speaking of books on leadership…my favorite author on the subject matter is John C. Maxwell. He has written over 50 books on leadership and is widely considered a leading expert, and is often hired as a keynote speaker to expound on the topic at conferences or corporate gatherings.

I have personally read several of his books on leadership, and have heard him speak on multiple occasions, so I’m sure that my insights are shaped significantly through his particular lens.

Since I hope to add more value to you during the time you spend reading this article, my plan isn’t to simply regurgitate information, but to give you a way to look at leadership from possibly a slightly different angle. Potentially even allowing you to evaluate your own leadership ability, and the inevitable
impact that it could have on others within your sphere of influence.

I’ve studied leadership by studying leaders and asking questions. That’s not a novel idea or methodology I know, but I wanted to share a few of the questions I like to ask. Hopefully along the way, these will get the wheels turning in your mind a little, and spur you on to discovering more of the leader within you, as I believe they have for me.

• What can we do to become better leaders?
• What can we learn from great leaders?
• What drives people to develop their leadership ability?

I think that each of these questions can provide valuable insight for us as we understand and develop our own strengths and weaknesses with regards to leadership. It is of great value to understand what we are naturally gifted with, and also where we may have some shortfalls that need to be strengthened.

Learning from great leaders is a surefire way to reveal some glaring weaknesses I’ve found. Self evaluation is key to improvement however, so don’t let the gaps in your leadership ability be a deterrent for you. The last question above is important though.

Being a leader can be challenging, if not downright hard.

So make no mistake, understanding what drives others, and more specifically, what drives you to put in the work and develop those stubborn leadership weaknesses, is highly important.

We need to understand what drives us on a deeply intuitive level. So much so, that it is ingrained within us, and becomes part of who we are to our core. Otherwise, when things get a little tough, we’ll just throw in the towel, and let others do the hard things, while we settle for something safer, easier, and mediocre.

In the sub-headline I mentioned Vision and Purpose. I reference those because they are both interconnected with someone’s leadership. Over my 46 years of life, I’ve asked many great leaders the following questions.

What is the purpose behind their leadership and what vision guides their purpose?

Rather than dive into the purpose and vision of others, I ask you the same thing… What is the purpose behind, and the vision guiding Your leadership?

Identifying your purpose and vision can provide the necessary understanding and drive to overcome inevitable challenges your leadership growth will encounter. The process of becoming a leader can be lonely at times, not unlike the entrepreneurial journey as you build a business or multiple businesses.

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There will be people in your life that challenge your leadership, just as there are those who will question your business acumen. At times, we will likely question our own abilities, whether that be to lead anyone at all, or to become a successful business owner. These are precisely the times we all need to be able to reflect and tap into our own purpose and vision for why we do whatever it takes.

I believe there is a leader within all of us.

With that in mind, I want to propose a final question to you.

What Impact does a great leader have on people who are influenced by them?

I titled this article The Leading Impact, because I believe that true leadership has an amazing impact on others. In business, great leadership can provide jobs, income, wealth, stability, and financial freedom.

In life, great leadership can inspire change, it can be a catalyst to impact generations of humanity through the ripple effects of influence on lives around these great leaders. It can ignite a flame of passion to be a greater person today than yesterday, and in turn, that flame can spread to others who then take up the mantle of leadership, and continue the chain reaction of impacting lives.

I submit to you that it doesn’t matter whether you only learn to lead yourself well, and never esteem to lead a team of change agents. Your leadership matters, and you can have a huge impact on just a few, or possibly even on generations of people.

Regardless, all of this would be possible because you made a decision to clearly define your Purpose, cast Vision for your life, and become the Leader you were created to be.

Much love on your journey!

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